YCDC Bank

This three-storey building is diagonally across from Sofaer’s Building. It still bears the name of the original owners and the year of its construction on the pediment facing the street. The building’s façade and its elaborate cornice above the second floor are worth admiring.

A Scott & Co. was a trading house with Scottish roots. Like most of its peers, the firm engaged in a wide range of activities: they were famous for exporting cheroots (Burmese cigars) back to Britain, which were popular at the time. In the 1920s, witty commentators described Rangoon as “a suburb of Glasgow, commercially”. Five of the eight members of the Rangoon Chamber of Commerce in 1910 were Scots. Their firms were central to the colonial economy and commissioned many of 20th-century Rangoon’s most imposing buildings, such as Graham & Co. (today’s British Embassy), Finlay, Fleming & Co. (better known as the former Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise Building) and the Irrawaddy Flotilla Co. (today’s Inland Waterways Department). Nowadays, the A Scott & Co. building serves as the bank of the Yangon City Development Committee. The three long porticos are prime, shaded spots for cars and hawkers.